


Even With Just Your Memory

by butyoucantnemo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Female Peter Parker, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt Peter Parker, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Wizards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23180854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butyoucantnemo/pseuds/butyoucantnemo
Summary: When Penny Parker gets hit with some weird wizard spell while on patrol, she loses her memory of Tony. In order to get her memories back, Tony has to take a trip down Penny’s memory lane... literally.
Relationships: Ben Parker & May Parker (Spider-Man), Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Stephen Strange
Comments: 29
Kudos: 135





	Even With Just Your Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mjxyz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mjxyz/gifts).



> Hi everyone!! I tried writing this for 4 days and had the biggest writer’s block known to man. Thankfully, with school switching to online because of everything going on with the virus, I had a lot of time today to sit down and write pretty much this entire thing.
> 
> Huge thank you to Mia who requested this story a while ago! I know this probably isn’t exactly what you were hoping for but I hope I at least did your idea a little bit of justice!!
> 
> (All mistakes are mine.)
> 
> Hope you all enjoy! :)

It’s official: Tony hates magic. Sure, it’s cool in the movies and the tv shows, but what’s not cool? When a weird-ass wizard decides to wreak havoc in Queens and the only person close enough to deflect the wizard’s advances is Spidergirl. What he hates even more if when said girl gets hit by some weirdo spell cast by the wizard and falls unconscious before Tony has time to get to her. And the cherry on top? Penny doesn’t remember him when she wakes up. 

It had taken three days for Penny to wake up from whatever “magic coma” she was placed under and when she finally did wake up, she looked around the room with distant eyes. After taking in her surroundings, she turned to Tony, who was sitting by her side, holding her hand, and gently asked, “Do I know you?”

The whole state of New York could have heard Tony’s heart breaking from those four little words. 

Holding back the tears that immediately flooded his eyes, Tony responded, “Yeah, honey. I’m Tony. You know, Mr. Stark?” When her face revealed no recollection of the name, Tony all but chocked on a sob, wondering what he did in his earlier life to deserve this awful turn of events. 

After seeing the man’s upset state, Penny’s eyes quickly filled with her own tears as she stuttered, “I-I…Are y-you my da-dad?”

And that breaks his heart even more. 

“I-uh…,” Tony stammered, “Well…kind of,” he finished in a neutral tone. Ever since he had offered Penny the internship, the two of them had formed a strong bond between them, so much so that Tony saw Penny as the daughter he never had and Penny saw Tony as the dad always longed for. 

Before Penny could ask any questions, Tony quickly called a nurse in to check the girl over so he could get some air. By the time he had gotten some coffee in his system and made his way back to room Penny was residing in, the girl was fast asleep, presumably from the medicine the nurse was told to give her. Deciding what he had to do, Tony picked up his phone and called the only person he knew who would know about magic: Doctor Stephen Strange. 

The conversation with Stephen was short and sweet. Tony explained the problem and Stephen gave him the solution: travel inside Penny’s memories (with the help of Strange’s magic) and re-insert himself in her memories of them. 

The night passed and the sun rose on a new day. And the new day happened to be the one where Tony would help Penny get her memories back. 

“Are you sure this’ll work, Stranger Danger?” Tony asks as Stephen prepares both Tony and Penny for what was about to happen while the girl is still asleep. It’s simple: Stephen will conjure a spell to place Tony and Penny under, Tony will go through a timeline of Penny’s most important, distinct memories and essentially reenact a few of their interactions, and Penny will, hopefully, wake up remembering everything. After explaining the plan to Tony, Stephen puts Tony to sleep alongside Penny, both of them now under a spell, and waits next to them until he is needed to wake them up. 

—————————————————————————————

The first memory of Penny that Tony sees is of her and her parents on Christmas morning. The girl looks to be around the age of four and the whole scene is very blurry around the edges, almost as if Penny barely remembers the event. The faces of Penny’s parents are not very distinct, but four year-old Penny is clear in focus. 

(Tony recalls Penny telling him that she doesn’t remember her parents at all, other than the few pictures she has of them from her baby books.)

The little family of three is sitting right in front of a Christmas tree in what is assumed to be a living room. Penny’s sitting on her father’s lap as she tears open the wrapping paper to a box-shaped present. Penny must remember this present well because Tony can very clearly see that the opened present is a Lego Millennium Falcon. Tony sees the bright, all-consuming grin Penny sports as the observes her gift and turns to thank her parents before the scene becomes completely out of focus and fades away. 

The second memory Tony sees is of the day Penny’s parents died. In this scene, Mary and Ricard Parker’s faces are a little less blurry and the scene is a little more focused; Tony recognizes the place as the apartment Tony first met Penny in. He sees as a six year-old Penny Parker, with tears shining in her eyes and a pink, stuffed rabbit clutched tightly in her hands as her parents tell her they promise to be back before she knows it. He sees May and Ben Parker ushering little Penny into their apartment, assuring the apologetic-looking parents that their little girl would be well taken care of. 

In the blink of an eye, the scene changes from morning to night. This time, Tony sees Penny wailing in the arms of her aunt and uncle after being told the news of her parents’ death. He sees the hopeless expressions Ben and May’s faces as they do their best to conceal their grief in order to confront the little girl who just lost her whole world. As they both press a kiss to the grieving girl’s head, the scene grows unfocused and fades away into the next memory. 

The third memory Tony sees is the first time Penny meets Ned Leeds. After noticing that the Penny in this memory looks about the same age as the Penny in the last memory, Tony remembers Penny telling him that she had to move schools after moving in with her aunt and uncle because of the different school zones. Tony watches as Ned walks up to the empty table Penny is sitting at and introduces himself, quickly rambling to her about his new Lego Star Wars set. Tony observes with nothing short of amusement as Penny’s big, hazel eyes light up with excitement as she too starts to ramble about Star Wars and Legos and whatever her brilliant little mind can think of. As the two kids declare the other their best friend, the scene grows blurry and fades away. 

The fourth memory Tony sees falls on a day that looks like any other. Tony, again, recognizes the apartment as the apartment May and Penny still live in. In this particular memory, Ben Parker is dressed in his police uniform, holding a solemn-looking Penny to his chest as the two talk softly to each other, Ben’s voice being calm and gentle and Penny’s voice being chocked-up and full of despair. 

Most of their conversation is dulled and muffled, as if they’re underwater, until he hears Penny say in a heartbreakingly youthful voice, “Please, please, I don’t want you to go, Uncle Ben. P-please.”

“Sweetheart, I have to. It’s my job to help this city and the people in it. But I’ll be right back, I promise,” Ben responds in a very soothing voice. Without knowing the context of this conversation but recognizing that Penny still looks of the age of seven, Tony assumes that this is Ben’s first day back at work since the death of his brother and sister-in-law. What he doesn’t have to assume is how upset Penny is about another parental figure leaving her, even if it is just for work. 

“B-but las-last time, Mom a-and D-Dad promised to c-come back and they di-didn’t,” Penny all but wailed as she clutched her uncle’s uniform tightly and sobbed into his uniform-clad shoulder. 

Practically melting with a mixture of sympathy and sadness, Ben begins softly combing through his niece’s long, brown hair and says, “My grandpa once taught me that with great power comes great responsibility. He also taught me that when you can do the things that you can, but you don’t, and then bad things happen, they happen because of you. I have the power to help the people of Queens and I help them because I can. I would rather help other people than see them get hurt, especially if it’s up to me. You understand, Penny-pie?”

“I u-understand, Uncle Ben. With great p-power comes great r-responsibility,” Penny sniffed out as she gave her uncle one last squeeze before letting go of him. 

Tony watches the scene go blurry as Ben gives Penny one last kiss and leaves for work, reminding the little girl that he loves her. Penny blows him a kiss and clutches onto her pink rabbit as she tells him she loves him back. And then everything fades away. 

After that memory, Tony witnesses many of Penny’s little, but equally significant, memories she has with her aunt and uncle, like when May and Penny baked together for the first time, when Ben taught her how to ride a bike, when May and Ben got into a fight and Penny turned on music from their record player and made Ben and May come and dance with her until they smiled and made up, and even when Penny sat on her living room sofa with her aunt and uncle, watching the news of Tony’s rescue from Afghanistan. He couldn’t help but love that little girl even more when she burst into tears of happiness after it was announced that he had made it home from his capture safe and sound. 

The next significant memory Tony sees is the fateful field trip to Oscorp. Tony watches with rapt attention as a 14 or 15 year old Penny slows her pace to wonder off without the rest of her classmates. He witnesses her fiddling around with things in the lab, eyes filled with curiosity, when a unique, almost glowing, spider quickly scampers onto the girl’s hand and bites down on the skin and flesh. Immediately, Penny’s eyes glow an unnatural green color as she sways harshly, suddenly gripping the sides of the lab table to break her inevitable fall. 

Before Tony can blink, the setting changes to a hospital room, where he sees Penny laying lifelessly on the uncomfortable hospital bed, a worried Ben and May clutching each one of her hands. Tony watches as a young nurse comes in and informs Penny’s guardians that the girl is stable and will make a full recovery. May bursts into tears and reaches over the sleeping girl’s body to clutch desperately at her husband’s hand. A moment or two after the nurse leaves, Penny begins opening her eyes, taking her sweet time, most likely because of her new heightened senses, Tony thinks. After a couple minutes of blinking, Penny’s eyes finally make an appearance and immediately fill up with tears as she realizes where she is and notices her red-eyed aunt and uncle sitting beside her. The edges of the scene begin to blur as Ben and May rush to trap Penny in a desperate hug. Tony notices Penny staring warily at her hands, probably noticing their new stickiness, as everything fades away. 

Tony recognizes the next memory immediately, having seen the events on the news the night it happened. This one is of the night Ben died. Tony sees Penny storming out of the apartment after an argument with her uncle, angrily putting on her backpack as she races down the stairs and out into the street. The setting quickly changes as Penny’s walking in the streets of Queens late at night. Tony sees Ben noticing her among the flocks of people and running through an alley to reach his niece before he lost sight of her again. But before he can get to the girl, a mugger comes out of the alley and shoots Ben as he runs out of a bodega with a bag full of cash. 

Hearing the gunshot, Penny turns around to check out what’s happening. Tony sees the instant Penny recognizes who got shot and sprints to the scene of the crime, eyes already flooding her youthful eyes. 

“Uncle Ben!” Penny cries in agony as she reaches for her uncle with shaky hands while heaving sobs. Tony’s heart breaks as he watches the girl spiral into an anxiety attack while watching her beloved uncle bleed out in front of her. Everything slowly blurs as Penny continues to wail and try to catch her breath, and Tony sees an ambulance show up at the scene right before everything fades away. 

The seventh memory Tony encounters is a day he will never forget: the day he officially met Penny Parker. He watches as Penny enters her apartment, rambling on about something, not noticing just who is sitting on her living room sofa, eating her aunt’s walnut loaf. Remembering the Stephen said he needed to re-insert himself in her memories, Tony makes a move to sit on the couch, in the same place he was sitting in her memories, passing through the memory form of him like a ghost. Tony watches with amusement as the memory plays out, just like he remembers it. He plays out the scene just as he should, saying his lines exactly right, but he can’t help but smile a little more at her and voice his thoughts in a softer tone than previous him did. And as Penny webs his hands to the doorknob, and then precedes to scramble to get the webs off of his hand, everything fades away. 

Many memories of the two of them pass him by, like when she saved his plane the night of the homecoming dance, when he asked Penny to join the Avengers, and even little moments like the two of them tinkering in the lab, the time when Tony found out Penny was deathly ticklish, and the first time Penny introduced Tony to zucchini bread, the Parker family’s favorite sweet treat. 

But while all those sweet, little memories made his heart soar, nothing could top the next memory he waltzed into. This time, Penny’s memory shows him the first time Penny accidentally called him dad. Tony takes his position in the scene and watches with fond eyes as Penny dozes off at her workstation one night when they were working in the lab. He remembers that day like no other. He recalls her patrolling earlier that day and then swinging over to the Tower, ready to unwind in the lab and maybe watch a movie after the two finished tinkering. But, Penny’s body said otherwise and she was left dozing off ever few minutes out of pure exhaustion. Just like the day the scene happened, Tony takes pity on the poor girl and tries to coerce her to bed. Half-asleep and dazed, Penny lets herself be dragged by her mentor up to her room. 

Once finally arriving in the girl’s room a floor up from where they were working in the lab, Penny lays down and goes still, sporting a stubborn, yet sleepy expression on her face. Laughing, because still, to this day, Penny always seems to brighten his day, Tony gently tucks her under her covers, just like a father would for his daughter, but not before tickling her side just a little, eliciting a laugh from the girl. 

And once he finishes making her laugh and fully tucks her in, he hears Penny sleepily mumble, “Goodnight, Dad.” In an instant, Tony’s eyes fill with happy tears, just like they the night of this memory, and he watches as Penny realizes what her sleep-muddled self said to her mentor. She shoots up in her bed, suddenly awake, and starts stammering out apologies, as if she just said the worst thing in the whole world to him. 

Keeping his face calm and collected, even though he was jumping with joy and a little bit of fear on the inside, Tony softly and lovingly kisses the girl’s forehead and boldly says, “I love you, honey. And I love that she see me that way.” After seeing her look of apprehension, he continues, “I’m serious, Penny-pie. I’ve been seeing you as the daughter I never had for a long time now. I’m just happy you feel the same way, Webster.”

Penny’s eyes fill with tears once he’s finished, but there’s a look of sadness overtaking her features. She bows her head and mumbles, “That’s what my uncle used to call me: Penny-pie.”

Immediately, Tony pulls always, regret filling his eyes at using the special nickname but instead looking sadder, Penny just smiles at him with kind eyes and tells him, “He would’ve wanted you to call me that. Apparently, my dad used that same nickname for me. And Ben carried on the tradition after my parents died. But they’re not here with us anymore…and I think they would’ve wanted someone to keep the tradition alive,” Penny finishes, sounding older and more mature than she actually was. 

Tony practically melts out of relief and moves to tuck his kind-of daughter, who seems to have gotten tired once again, back under her covers. “Goodnight, Penny-pie,” he tells her, pouring as much love and emotion as he can muster into that little sentence. 

Seeming to understand everything he was trying to convey, Penny leans up from where she was laying and gives him a kiss on the cheek. Once settled back in her bed, Penny responds, “Goodnight, Dad,” with a huge, yet incredibly sleepy smile on her face. 

And as he closes the door to the girl’s room, he hears her whisper, “I love you too,” before the scene begins to blur and everything fades away. 

—————————————————————————————

Tony wakes up with a gasp, sitting up at a lightning speed, looking around the room while trying to get a grasp of the situation. He sees Stephen Strange standing about 5 feet away from him and notices Penny Parker slowly waking up from her sleeping state in the bed right next to his. 

His eyes remain on the girl as she takes in her surroundings, waiting in anticipation to see if their little trip down memory lane worked. When Penny locks eyes with him, he sees her face morph into one of recognition as tears spring to her eyes. Suddenly, she launches off of her bed and into his arms, startling him a little. After the surprise of the action melts away, Tony tightly wraps his arms around his mentee and breathes a huge sigh of relief now that she remembers him. 

Still in the grasp of the girl, Tony turns his head to Stephen and mouths, “Thank you,” as sincerely as possible. Stephen merely nods and exits the room, leaving Penny and Tony to enjoy their father-daughter movement. 

Penny’s the first to pull away and when she looks him in his eyes, still wrapped loosely in his arms, she says, “I love you, Dad. Thank you for saving me.” And though he wanted to tell her that it wasn’t only him who saved her, he simply kissed both of her cheeks and replies, “I love you too, Penny-pie. And I’m happy to save you, anytime, anywhere.”

And though they needed to talk about what happened and she needed to get checked out by doctors to see if everything was fine, Tony couldn’t help but squeeze Penny back into another tight hug and relish in the fact that the little girl in his arms cherishes the memories of them together just as much as he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you guys thought! Praying over everyone’s health and safety right now! ♥️


End file.
